MADURAI: In a bizarre con game, police on Sunday arrested a man on charges of selling an ordinary conch for nearly Rs 1 lakh to an acupuncture practitioner after claiming it possessed magical powers. According to police, accupuncture practitioner R Muthukrishnan (25) was befriended by one S Nagaraj (48), after the former moved to set up a clinic at Thummakundu village.
After gaining Muthukrishnan’s confidence, Nagaraj told him about the “magical conch” he picked up from a beach. Nagaraj told Muthukrishnan that despite its ordinary appearance, the conch could surface on its own when buried in rice. He also claimed it could cure illnesses if one consumed or bathed in the water in which the conch is kept immersed in, police said.
In order to convince Muthukrishnan, Nagaraj took him to his house to demonstrate how the conch makes a Hibiscus flower bloom in 10 minutes.
“Nagaraj kept the conch along with a Hibiscus bud in a room and locked it from outside after asking everyone to leave. When the room was opened 10 minutes later, Muthukrishnan was astounded to see the a blossomed flower,” a police officer said. An astonished Muthukrishnan bought the conch for a ‘discount price’ of Rs 95,000 instead of the Rs 1 lakh initially demanded by Nagaraj.
However, Muthukrishnan realised that he was cheated after his own experiments with the conch proved a dud. “Only later in the investigation did we find that another person had entered the room to replace the flower,” the officer said.
After Nagaraj refused to pay back the money despite repeated requests, Muthukrishnan, with the help of some friends, kidnapped the con artist and threatened his family for the money. Subsequently, Nagaraj’s son convinced Muthukrishnan to come to Saptur before the police was informed of the whole episode.